it's been rather interesting watching vested interests stampede to settle old scores and advance their own agendas, desperate to exact revenge for the exposure of their own indiscretions. labour has tried to make this about the judgment of david cameron, who has in turn attempted to deflect attention by threatening statutory regulation of the press. the BBC and others are using the scandal to prevent murdoch taking full control of BSkyB. MPs are exploiting phone hacking to repay scotland yard for inquiries into cash-for-questions and cash-for-honours; and to get even with fleet street over the expenses expose.

Hammy wrote:it's been rather interesting watching vested interests stampede to settle old scores and advance their own agendas, desperate to exact revenge for the exposure of their own indiscretions. labour has tried to make this about the judgment of david cameron, who has in turn attempted to deflect attention by threatening statutory regulation of the press. the BBC and others are using the scandal to prevent murdoch taking full control of BSkyB. MPs are exploiting phone hacking to repay scotland yard for inquiries into cash-for-questions and cash-for-honours; and to get even with fleet street over the expenses expose.

There is of course many with vested interests , but i would have loved to see a Conservative response to all this if this had been a Labour goverment in power .I,m aware that Tony Blair does,nt come out of this with clean hands due to his closeness to Murdoch , but here with have our prime minister who claims a personal friendship with Brooks and after repeated warnings to keep a distance then took Coulson into the heart of goverment .Editor of the Guardian warned his chief of staff Paddy Ashdown says he warned him so forgive me my doubts on Camerons claims of ignorance .I have a vested interest i must confess my delight is hard to hide seeing Cameron ducking and diving , a dodgey used car salesman is how he appears but then i,ve have never been fooled.

The readers' comments are interesting. People are certainly upset about all of this. While there is blame on both sides the media under Murdoch clearly is taking a bashing... saying Labour allowed it or Thatcher started it isn't good enough, who is going to stop it? Is it such an awful idea to have a regulated press? They clearly cannot regulate their own behavior to a civilized standard much less a standard of journalism fit to be called by that name.

Why do I think no one really cares about the "500 journalists" who lost their jobs, if this is the level of journalism in the Murdoch papers or even in just NOW they don't deserve to work in that line any more.

bskyb should not be under this umbrella -and I hope the Dow and SEC get involved on the governance issue and split this consortium up into papers that have some editorial independence and don't just all print a lot of tripe.

People generally get the government and the press that they deserve, now that regular people (who pay for all of this) are fed up to the back teeth and voicing their opinions perhaps something will be done to change it. They can start with putting people in jail who broke the law or allowed it to be broken on their watch - that might be a nice change.

The Murdoch meeting with the Dowlers is still going on, it has been confirmed.

4.49pm: The Press Association has more on the meeting between Rupert Murdoch and the Dowler family, which Murdoch requested. Murdoch met the family and their lawyer, Mark Lewis, at the five-star One Aldwych hotel central London. The purpose of the meeting was to apologise to the family, Sky News is reporting.

The Dowlers – who found out about Milly being targeted shortly before her killer, Levi Bellfield, went on trial at the Old Bailey – were the first of a string of crime victims to have been exposed as targets of the paper.

The family have already held talks with David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg this week.

The Guardian's revelation that Milly's voicemail was accessed on behalf of the News of the World while she was missing, and that messages were deleted to make room for more recordings, giving the family false hope that she was still alive, caused widespread revulsion and ignited huge public interest in the phone-hacking scandal.

4.46pm: Matthew Taylor has more on the meeting between Rupert Murdoch and the Dowler family.

The head of News Corporation is understood to have requested the meeting with the family of the murdered schoolgirl and their lawyer Mark Lewis.

Evan Harris, who runs the Hacked Off Campaign that has worked closely with the Dowler family since it emerged last week that their daughter's mobile phone had been hacked, said the meeting had been set for central London at 4.15pm.

"I am not sure it is going to be a happy meeting but I am sure Mark [Lewis, the family's solicitor] will say something afterwards," he said.

4.43pm: Rupert Murdoch met Milly Dowler's family today as part of his efforts to stem the huge damage to his worldwide business interests caused by the Guardian's revelations that the News of the World had hacked the murdered 13-year-old's mobile phone.

Murdoch held talks with Milly's parents, Sally and Bob, and her sister Gemma, in a London hotel this afternoon.

4.32pm: Breaking: The Guardian has confirmed reports that Rupert Murdoch has met the family of Milly Dowler this afternoon. More as we get it.

In a statement following the meeting, the Dowlers' solicitor Mark Lewis said: "We told him that his papers should lead the way in setting the standard of honesty and decency in the field and not what had gone on before. At the end of the day actions speak louder than words.

"He was humbled, shaken and sincere. This was something that had hit him on a personal level. He apologised many times and held his head in his hands."

Rebekah Brooks' departure followed days of increasing pressure to step down as the phone hacking scandal grew.

Mr Murdoch will apologise for the paper's "serious wrongdoing", in national newspaper adverts on Saturday.

Prime Minister David Cameron thinks that Rebekah Brooks's resignation was "the right decision", his official spokesman said.

Rebekah Brooks was the paper's editor between 2000 and 2003, during which time murder victim Milly Dowler's phone was hacked.

In a statement, she said she felt a "deep responsibility for the people we have hurt".

She said she wanted to "reiterate how sorry I am for what we now know to have taken place".

Her statement went on: "I have believed that the right and responsible action has been to lead us through the heat of the crisis. However my desire to remain on the bridge has made me a focal point of the debate.

"This is now detracting attention from all our honest endeavours to fix the problems of the past."

Ms Brooks, 43, who had been with News International for 22 years, bowed to the international pressure piling up on the company.

She has been replaced by Tom Mockridge, who was in charge of News Corporation's Italian broadcasting arm.

In other developments:

Continue reading the main story“Start Quote

It is right that Rebekah Brooks has finally taken responsibility for the terrible events that happened on her watch”

Ed MilibandLabour Party leaderEx-News of the World editor Andy Coulson stayed as a guest of Prime Minister David Cameron at Chequers in March, several weeks after his resignation as communications chief, the Press Association quoted a Downing Street source as saying.The FBI is investigating reports that News Corporation sought to hack the phones of victims of the 9/11 attacksIn an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mr Murdoch defended the company's handling of the crisisMr Murdoch and his son James have agreed to stand in front of the Commons media select committee next Tuesday to answer MPs questions on the hacking scandal. Mr Murdoch snr said he would use his appearance to challenge some of the "total lies" stated in ParliamentFormer Conservative Party chairman Lord Fowler, speaking in a House of Lords debate, said a full inquiry should have been launched following an Information Commissioner's report in 2006 which identified 305 national journalists who received private information from investigatorsIn a message to News International staff, News Corporation's chief executive in Europe, James Murdoch, hailed Ms Brooks as "one of the outstanding editors of her generation" who "can be proud of many accomplishments as an executive".

"We support her as she takes this step to clear her name," he said.

National apology

Mr Murdoch revealed that News Corporation was planning to use national press adverts this weekend to apologise to the nation for wrongdoing at the News of the World.

"We are also sending letters to our commercial partners with an update on the actions we are taking.

Continue reading the main storyTom Mockridge

Born in New ZealandStarted career in newspapersLaunched News Corp's Sky Italia TV channel in 2003Will oversee major titles such as The Times, Sunday Times and The Sun"The company has made mistakes. It is not only receiving appropriate scrutiny, but is also responding to unfair attacks by setting the record straight."

A "humbled and very shaken" Rupert Murdoch has apologised to the family of Milly Dowler in a meeting in London.

The chairman of News Corporation requested the meeting after it emerged that the murdered schoogirl's mobile phone was hacked by the News of the World newspaper in 2002.

Mr Murdoch said during the meeting that the paper's actions were not the "standard set by his father".

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oh, b@lls.

I'm sure those were not the standards set by his father --they were the standards set by him. Now he wants to get the pity reserved for "old men who sit with their head in their hands" well, he's not a ole codger eating a tomato sandwich on a bench, feeding the pigeons. He's a multi billionaire who had no scruples in sacking hundreds to protect his CEO from facing accountability and who bragged about his influence over elections.

this country has bigger fish to fry. time to let this little saga go. after all, who cared until the name milly dowler popped up? now that's been addressed it's all back to so called celebrities like abi titmuss.

Bigger fish to fry than corruption? I think this is huge and will have an impact on British politics, laws, freedom of the press, and could be one of the death throes of print media like NOTW - I don't find it to be a little saga at all, there's criminal wrongdoing that is bringing down very wealthy powerful and influential people.

I hope they ride this and don't get off. It needs to be made very visible to the public what happened, what laws were broken, who did it, who knew what when and some people need to go to jail. Fines aren't a deterrent to people who have millions. Unless they are really BIG fines...